1. Field
The present inventive concept relates generally to a liquid crystal display (LCD), and more particularly, to a reflective LCD.
2. Description of the Related Art
A liquid crystal display (LCD) is a display device that displays an image by controlling light transmittance or reflectivity, in turn by controlling the molecular alignment state of liquid crystals. LCDs consume low power and are lightweight. Therefore, LCDs are widely used for various devices ranging from small-sized devices such as mobile phones, digital cameras and portable information devices to large-sized monitors and TVs.
LCDs can be divided into transmissive LCDs and reflective LCDs according to the light source used. A transmissive LCD displays an image by transmitting light emitted from a backlight module through a liquid crystal panel, and a reflective LCD displays an image using external light reflected by a liquid crystal panel.
The transmissive LCD has low light utilization efficiency because only about ⅕ of the light emitted from the backlight module passes through the liquid crystal panel, and has high power consumption because more than ⅔ of the total power is consumed in the backlight module. On the other hand, the reflective LCD uses external light instead of employing a separate light source. Therefore, power consumption is minimized.
In general, the reflective LCD includes a first display substrate including a switching device, a pixel electrode and a reflective layer, a second display substrate including a common electrode, a color filter and a light blocking member, and a liquid crystal layer interposed between the first display substrate and the second display substrate. Here, the light blocking member of the second display substrate is positioned at a boundary portion of each pixel to prevent the leakage of light and improve a reflection contrast ratio.
The light blocking member reduces an aperture ratio of the reflective LCD due to its light blocking property. Thus, a reflective LCD without the light blocking member has been proposed.
However, if the light blocking member is omitted, a boundary between adjacent pixels is not completely hidden. Therefore, a mixture of two colors displayed respectively by the adjacent pixels may be displayed around the boundary between the adjacent pixels.